10/14/06: THE BODY SNATCHER (Robert Wise, 1945) ****
The Val Lewton cycle of horror films were noted for their departure from traditional horror elements – so it’s perhaps ironic that the best of them is the one most steeped in Hollywood horror conventions and, by extension, perhaps the least Lewtonesque of his movies! Still, it seems that it was his decision to take the cycle away from a contemporary setting – given that he contributed a great deal to the script (even receiving credit for the first time, albeit under a pseudonym).
It’s an almost flawless piece of work, as literate and atmospheric as ever – indeed more so given the period (1830s Edinburgh recreated on standing sets from earlier RKO ‘A’ pictures such as THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME [1939]) and the source (Robert Louis Stevenson’s short story, although it apparently only retained the character names and the climactic scene!). Besides, Lewton still managed to incorporate his trademark ‘walk’ (perhaps the best one of all) and ‘bus’ sequences. The former is a seminal scene in horror cinema: as we hear a girl sing from inside Boris Karloff’s house, we watch him observe her through the window; the camera picks her up as she walks away – after which we hear the sound of horses’ hooves approaching; the girl sings her way through a dark alley, followed by Karloff’s cab; after a few seconds, the singing stops in mid-aria and we realize that that voice is gone forever (when her body turns up at Henry Daniell’s house, it’s here that Russell Wade – much like John Cairney in THE FLESH AND THE FIENDS [1959] – becomes aware of Karloff’s evil side of business, having met the girl only moments prior to her demise outside Karloff’s own lodgings!).
We’ve seen many films about grave-robbing (two of the best-known being CORRIDORS OF BLOOD [1958], again with Boris Karloff and which I’ve never watched, though it should be released by Criterion next January, and the afore-mentioned THE FLESH AND THE FIENDS, which I got to check out only a few days following this viewing of THE BODY SNATCHER) – and, specifically, the Burke & Hare case – since, but it was something of a novelty at the time (judging also by contemporary reviews, who objected to the repellent subject matter – the film was even banned in Chicago and Ohio!). Karloff (who missed out on the Lewton Tourneurs but eventually got a chance to work with the director on THE COMEDY OF TERRORS [1964]) is somewhere near his best as “Cabman” Gray, the nefarious title character; ditto Daniell in his signature role as the dogged, ruthless and finally crazed medico; Bela Lugosi’s bit – which, in spite of his second-billing and effective playing, he could not elevate above a minor supporting one – is somewhat thankless (though his big scene with Karloff, in which he attempts to blackmail him but ends up drunk and eventually strangled by the demonic cabman, emerges as one of the definite highlights of the film, thus ending their screen collaboration on a high note…and, in any case, his Joseph characterization here inspired a similarly-named one I included in a script I wrote with my twin brother called “New Age Or: The Children Of Liberty”!); Wade is competent as the young assistant, Edith Atwater quite good as Daniell’s long-suffering ‘wife’.
In the film, the distrust of doctors by the common people is immediately made evident to Wade by an old woman he meets at the cemetery in the opening sequence. Karloff goads a crippled young girl into stroking his horse’s shining white mane and tells her that it would be able to recognize her whenever his cab passes by – thus sadistically forcing the girl up from the wheelchair in order to watch for it over the balcony; clearly, she’s terrified of Gray but doesn’t seem comfortable in the hands of Daniell’s Toddy MacFarlane either; the doctor is unwilling to operate on the girl but is eventually persuaded, as much by Wade’s pleas as by Karloff’s threats (ironically, it’s when the girl makes that extra effort to catch a glimpse of Karloff’s cab that Daniell’s intervention is proven to have been a success!). Daniell goes to a pub occasionally to seek peace and tranquility after having lectured students all day but, even here, he’s unable to get rid of Karloff – who turns up to remind him that he holds the doctor in his grasp for having saved him from the gallows (by omitting to mention his name during the Burke & Hare trial); Karloff tells Daniell that he has been envious all his life of other people’s wealth and power – and the apparent right that gives them to abuse of their ‘inferiors’ – so, through the doctor’s indebtedness towards him (MacFarlane debasing himself by pleading to be spared Gray’s torments), he’s finally able to feel a man inside! After he’s forced to kill the cabman, the doctor seems to have regained his old self but it’s already too late (as Atwater tells Wade) – and it’s not long before MacFarlane succumbs to grave-robbing himself (which proves his undoing)! The film’s climax, then, is extremely impressive – with Karloff’s rapping of the phrase “never get rid of me” particularly chilling.
Unfortunately, the DVD transfer is rather dark but even the Audio Commentary is a bit of a let-down: Steve Haberman’s contribution only takes up the last half-hour of the film, so that it feels somewhat rushed – though still highly informative (and, happily, also deals a bit with ISLE OF THE DEAD [1945], which actually started shooting prior to THE BODY SNATCHER but production had to be shutdown after just one week due to Karloff’s back problems!); Robert Wise’s comments are certainly welcome, even if he spends too much time relaying his background at RKO and his work on other pictures – mind you, it’s all fascinating but then proper discussion of the film at hand is left somewhat lacking (but he does take care to praise Karloff for the gentleman he was, especially in the way he helped the ailing Lugosi through his performance…while also passing some unwise [sic] derogatory remarks regarding fellow Lewtonite Jacques Tourneur’s subsequent career)! Thanks to this track, I learnt that Bela Lugosi’s morphine addiction started around the time of this film’s production rather than a decade earlier, as I originally believed – and also that the first Karloff/Lewton collaboration was to have been a Technicolor version of J. Sheridan LeFanu classic vampire tale “Carmilla”!
11/03/06:
CRAWLSPACE (David Schmoeller, 1986) *1/2
This Italian-produced slasher flick is merely a cheap rehash of Michael Powell’s PEEPING TOM (1960) with all its exploitation elements accentuated and psychological insights all but removed. The cast is very weak – Talia Balsam (Martin’s daughter and George Clooney’s ex-wife!!) is something of a novelty in that she is hardly attractive enough to be the leading lady for this kind of film – and it’s only the sight of Klaus Kinski crawling from one apartment to the other to do his peeping – not to mention his limb-laden room where he keeps narrating the entries in his diary – that holds any interest at all for the viewer; some of the killings are grisly enough perhaps but nothing sufficiently memorable.
11/04/06:
JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY (Adam Marcus, 1993) *1/2
Although I did watch FREDDY VS. JASON (2003) a couple of years back, I had no idea (apart from what I gathered from the various discussions in the “Halloween Challenge” thread) that the last 3 entries in the Jason Voorhees saga (so far
) were made by other hands as it were (New Line rather than Paramount) and therefore not officially considered part of the series. Having now acquainted myself with them, I can see why…
If the character of Jason Voorhees was peripheral to the plot of FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V: A NEW BEGINNING (1985), he is even more so here: I don’t know if this was a conscious decision on the film-makers’ part to make this a completely new kind of “monster” but the result is that one gets the feeling that he is watching a wannabe David Cronenberg movie rather than a Jason movie, what with all that soul transference going on every couple of minutes via that disgusting tongue thing (which looks more like a turd being passed on from one…ah, nevermind)! And what’s up with that ALIEN-style creature which makes an appearance at the climax?!
Some of the characters – like the really mean bounty hunter – work well for the movie but some of the locals – like the fat bartender (who does get a hilarious come-uppance at least) and her entourage – are just there merely to increase the film’s body count; the most notable piece of gore here is Jason’s slitting of a horny female teenager just as she is getting it on with her man in their tent! For what it’s worth, the climactic title sequence is quite atmospheric and that twist in the very last shot was an amusing touch (although it does make you wonder why the eventual “duel” took so long in coming)!
11/04/06:
JASON X (James Isaac, 2001) *1/2
The crucial line in this needless futuristic updating of the Crystal Lake critter is the one uttered near the end by the most likable character in the film just as she is about to be dispatched to the next world by our Jason: “This sucks on so many levels!” The word “obnoxious” has been wildly overused by the undersigned of late but, nevertheless, it once again perfectly encapsulates the characters populating this slasher movie/space saga foremost among them the kinky Professor who has his own greedy designs on Jason’s future and the female robot assistant who indulges in an ultimately futile, would-be balletic duel with Jason (or rather his 25th Century upgrade, Uber-Jason
)) which sticks out like a sore thumb! I can't write this review without mentioning the most unintenionally funny death scene in the entire series (even if it was all happening in Jason's head) i.e. his beating to death a girl in a sleeping bag with her own companion enclosed in a similar bag
!!
Incredibly enough, New Line took the Cronenbergian admiration shown in their previous entry to the next level here by managing to convince the maverick Canadian film-maker himself to make a very early appearance in the film as an authority figure of some sort intent on studying the remains of Jason which have been conveniently preserved in a freezing compartment of a hi-tech lab (or something); mercifully, we are spared the vision of his unsurprising comeuppance at the hands of the revived Jason which happens soon after…
